East Texas clan to gather on land where ancestors worked as slaves

Family reunion is special this year

Published 5:30 am, Sunday, July 9, 2006

TYLER - They gather every two years for a weekend of fun, fellowship and connection.

The Snoddy family reunion is an established tradition in the Tyler and Longview area, with family coming from as far away as Seattle and California.

This year was different.

Melvin Snoddy, family historian and chairman of the reunion committee, has been a genealogist for 28 years. He's been researching the Snoddy name for some time now and had a breakthrough recently.

"I'm standing on land where 140 years ago my great-great-grandfather was a slave," he said.

Snoddy, 50, began researching his family name a few years back and discovered that its origin is Scottish. He began tracing the movement of the Scottish Snoddys, across the Atlantic to South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas and eventually Texas.

He said he found through census records that the Snoddy family had 11 brothers and sisters who split over the slavery issue in the mid-1800s.

The name lives on

"Both the Snoddys died within a month of each other, leaving two young children, who also died young," he said.

But the Snoddy name lives on with Thaddeus, only 9 years old in 1860.

"The Snoddys had 14 slaves, and Thad was the only one to take the name, as far as I can tell," he said.

"During that time there was a scare in Tyler, an insurrection. They were arresting and beating a lot of blacks, even hanging some," he said. "I have the receipt where Thad was picked up for something. They paid to get him out of jail — he was 9 years old; I can't imagine why he was there."

Gilbert, a local lawyer, said his family has owned the "Snoddy Farm" since 1957. "The name from the e-mail clicked, so I called Melvin, and come to find out he is African-American and a descendent of one of the Snoddy slaves," Gilbert said.

He said the eerie connections didn't end there.

"My great-great-grandfather on my father's side was John M. Williams. He came to Smith County some time before 1850 and was elected sheriff in 1856-1860," Gilbert said. "When Melvin showed me the bill of cost to get Thad out of jail in 1860, it was amazing."

Gilbert said apparently Thad was the object of a lawsuit disputing ownership and was being held until the sheriff could prove the title.

"This was in 1860, just before my great-great-grandfather's term as sheriff ended," he said.

"It is, indeed, a small world. We own the place where Melvin's great-great-grandfather was held as a slave and my great-great-grandfather held Thad in jail until 'title' could be resolved," Gilbert said.

After tours of the farm, Gilbert offered to let the Snoddys have part of their family reunion at the farm where their ancestors were once slaves.

Gilbert credits a strong oral history with the tracing of this family's roots.

"Usually for pre-1865 history, African-Americans don't know much because the census records listed slaves by age and sex, not by name," Gilbert said. "What's unique here is that there were estate records that confirm the oral history."